A tattooed, pipe smoking nude female flashing her manicured muff has been censored in London.. shock horror! The skeptic in me says “nothing like a bit of censorship to get the word out, for free” but the old conservative man in me says “tone down the come-hither look and nobody would have a problem with it” (just so we’re clear, I’m not old or conservative, I don’t sit in any boxes). People are trying to make it about the pubic hair or the strength exuded by the woman or whatever, but lets be honest, it’s about the come-screw-me look being shoved in front of kids.Continue Reading

Five artists have been shortlisted for the £25,000 British art competition, the John Moores Painting Prize. The 5 artists are Rae Hicks, Juliette Losq, Mandy Payne, Alessandro Raho and Rose Wylie. Past winners of the prestigious art award include David Hockney in 1967, Mary Martin in 1969, Peter Doig in 1993 and Sarah Pickstone in 2012. Out of the 5 paintings shortlisted I would go with the Rae Hicks work.Continue Reading

Banksy The Unauthorised Retrospective in London opens today at Sotheby’s S|2 gallery. Steve Lazarides, Banksy’s agent up until 2008 has curated the exhibition which includes some of the artist’s earlier works through to more recent paintings. More than seventy Banksy artworks will be on display which will make it one of his largest formal gallery shows. I thought I would have been tired of Banksy by now, but I still find him interesting. I like that he has one finger up at the system while most other artists are very obedient and drone-like little creatures. Some urban artists will even tell you to be obedient and OBEY your masters. Continue Reading

George Condo will be showing a group of new works on paper at the Skarstedt Gallery in London from the 11th of February. It will coincide with a painting exhibition by the American artist at the Simon Lee Gallery in London. It looks like it’ll be a really nice show. I wish London was a little closer to Australia Continue Reading

Art and sex come together at the British Museum in a new exhibition called Shunga: Sex and pleasure in Japanese art. Shunga, which is the Japanese term for erotic art, literally meaning spring pictures, is a selection 170 works from collections around the world, in the form of paintings, prints and illustrated books. The erotic art is from the 1600s through to 1900.Continue Reading

I love the idea of this project in the UK and hope it spreads throughout the world. From the 12th through to the 25th of this month they are displaying posters of famous British paintings in 22,000 locations around the country. On poster sites, bus stops and billboards you will see great British art. How cool is that? Refreshing change from the rubbish that advertisers shove down our throats day in, day out.Continue Reading

This weekend is the last chance to take the HWAT art trail in 2009, visiting artist studios around Norfolk and Suffolk in the UK. Artists will open their studio doors on the 11th-12th of July from 11 am to 6 pm.

Here’s a blurb from the HWAT website.. “The Harleston & Waveney Art Trail Collective is a diverse and lively community of professional artists who live and work in the beautiful Waveney Valley, all within reach of Harleston, a small market town on the border of Norfolk and Suffolk. The Harleston & Waveney Art Trail has taken place every summer since 2005.”

The nude Madonna and Guy Ritchie painting by Peter Howson ended up selling this week. It failed to sell at a recent contemporary Scottish art auction by McTear’s Auctioneers in Glasgow but has since been sold for more than the £15,000 reserve price.

McTear’s employee Brian Clements told the BBC “We were very confident we would find the right buyer for ‘Madonna and Guy’ and we are delighted to have secured such an excellent price for the painting. Although we cannot divulge the name of the buyer, we can confirm that the painting will be leaving Scotland.”Continue Reading

ArtReview has put together a video (below) on Martin Creed’s latest creation at the Tate Britain. Creed is the artist that won the Turner prize in 2001 for his “lights going on and off” work where an empty room periodically had the lights turned on and off, which reminds of a Simpsons episode where Homer keeps turning the light switch on and off; lights go on, lights go off, lights go on…Continue Reading

For three weekends this July the “Harleston & Waveney Art Trail” is being held in the UK. They’re weekends where a group of artists open up their studio doors to the public. The artists work in different mediums and styles, but are located close to each other as you can walk or bicycle along the art trail.Continue Reading